Found
by Dahlia
Summary: Finding isn't always the logical culmination of searching. Remember, habit is just addiction with fewer letters. [One-shot]


**Disclaimer:** I own the plot, but the people belong to JKR. And I'm not making any money, so don't sue.

**Author's Note:** Perhaps, in some universe, this is what happened after Fly Away. Perhaps it happened _during_ Fly Away. Or perhaps, this is a wholly separate story, and Snape is just one psychotic son-of-a-bitch. I leave the decision entirely up to you.

~*~*~*~

_Found_

~*~

It was noon. She squinted up at the harsh sun, frowning at the brightness of it. Even behind dark glasses, the gaudy light was giving her a headache. Amazingly, it made even the dirty streets shine - no small feat, considering the age of London. Ducking her head, she glared at the sidewalk and plowed through the crowds of tourists and sightseers - fat, annoying creatures, who saw the city through the lens of a camera or a video recorder. She found them offensive and crude, and while she fully accepted this could be considered something of an elitist opinion, she didn't care. There was no one to tell her she was being snobbish, so what did it matter if she was?

She moved away from the loud groups in front of the museum and along the street that fronted it. A block or so away from the bustle, she crossed the road and stepped into a small store, a bell jingling as she opened and shut the door. It was silent inside, the only sound being a rustle of paper as the woman behind the desk looked up from her bookkeeping. She returned the shopkeeper's smile, and stepped up to the bookshelves, inlaid in the wall, and began skimming titles. Third, second and first editions, all in lovely condition. She sighed happily, and gently touched the spine of a particularly nice copy of 'The Pickwick Papers'.

The bell jingled again. She didn't bother to look, but when someone brushed past her and continued around the corner into the rest of the shop, she took a few steps to the left and glanced around the corner.

It was a man - tall, very tall when seen in the little old shop with its low ceiling. He was very pale and had dark hair which fell in his face and around his shoulders, but he didn't look very young. This struck her as odd - how many distinguished-looking older men with long hair did one see every day? She wondered if he wasn't an actor, then caught herself staring, and glanced hurriedly back at the books in front of her. She wasn't certain why she was so curious about this man - in the strictest sense of the word, he wasn't very handsome, and from the quick glance she got of his profile, he looked harsh, for lack of a better word. 

So she looked at the books in front of her, and tried to breath life back into the small, selfish love she had felt for them. But her eyes started to wander back around the corner to the tall, harsh man. He was pouring over a book, and she could see the scowl of concentration on his face.

_A man who scowls when he's only concentrating is nothing to be trifled with, my dear,_ she told herself, and primly plucked a book from the shelf, delicately flipping through it. But the small, fine type on the slightly water-stained paper wasn't making any sense. She hissed in frustration, and looked up to find the man much closer now, and looking at her. She forced her eyes to un-widen, and swallowed the shriek that was crawling up her throat.

_His eyes are black,_ she thought in amazement. _No one has black eyes. Just dark brown._ But his black eyes were still staring at her, clearly resonating confusion and displeasure, as though she were a child he had just caught in some minor mischief. 

She knew she was blushing, and with clumsy, foreign fingers, put the book back on the shelf and walked out of the shop without looking back.

~*~

The sun wasn't quite so bright on Saturday afternoons anymore. She was wearing her dark glasses, true, but it was more than that. She had noticed it walking home from the bookshop, and the next morning when she woke up, and then every morning for the rest of the week. She had continued to notice it for three weeks. All day at work, the windows had seemed to be casting perpetual shade over the offices, rather than serving their purpose of illumination. The undertones of black and white seemed to be taking over her colour vision, and she wondered if it wasn't because she had dreamed of white skin and black eyes every night for the past week. She told herself it was like midnight had kicked noon out on its arse and taken over all 24 hours of the day, but she knew that she was being silly, and only giggled a very little bit. It was just because she wasn't sleeping well, and nothing more.

She had returned to that little street with its little bookshop. She stood across from it, the tall iron-wrought fence of the museum guarding her back. There was no one going in or out of it, really. Tourists wandered past it, on their way to the museum to try and absorb some culture into their video recorders. She sneered inwardly at them, fancying herself capable of the look he had directed at her.

That had confused her. She wasn't an unattractive girl, in her way. Perhaps he was gay? That would be rather depressing. But it wouldn't stop her waiting, and watching.

She turned her head to the left, to watch the human tide flow in and out of the museum's main gate, and when she looked to her right, he was less than a foot from her, glaring down his long nose.

"What on earth are you doing here?" he snapped.

She jumped, and resisted the urge to fiddle with her sunglasses. "Oh, um…"

"Just as I thought. You disappear for years, only to turn up and begin following me."

She opened her mouth to issue an automatic apology, but stopped once she fully processed his words. 

"Excuse me? I've no idea who you are, and I think you're mistaking me for someone else."

His eyes narrowed, and he seemed to take a closer look. 

"What is your name, girl?"

"Excuse me?" 

"Your name. It's not a difficult request, now is it?" he snapped, becoming impatient.

"Catherine," she said, completely confused.

The man snorted, and took another close look at her. "Please yourself." He turned quickly, and strode off, away from her. She stared after him until he stopped, a meter or so away, and turned his head.

"Are you coming or not?"

She jumped, and quickly trotted after him.

~*~

His flat was large, from what she saw of it before she was manhandled into the bedroom. Not that she had minded in the slightest - she had, quite literally, been dreaming of this moment for three weeks. She hadn't expected the scars though. Much of his skin was covered in them, most relatively minor, or at least well-healed. She had found, much to her surprise, that she didn't mind them. They gave his skin an interesting texture, and she began to enjoy the feel of them under her fingers.

The sex was fast, and violent, and she loved it. He hissed things at her, under his breath, words not quite fully formed, and what sounded like a woman's name. This didn't bother her, though. She had been called many different things during sex, the least offensive of which being other women's names.

When he finished, he rolled off her, and lay very still for a moment. She was too sore to move, and was content to just close her eyes and smile. After a while, the mattress shifted, and she heard the slapping of bare feet on the hardwood floor, heading off into another room. She was warm, though, and comfortable, and didn't bother to open her eyes. Hopefully, he wouldn't throw her out just yet. 

She heard him coming back, a few minutes later, but instead of the soft sticky sounds of bare feet, there was the hard click of a heel on wood. Sighing, knowing it was time to go, she reluctantly opened her eyes.

He was fully dressed now. She smiled faintly, off-put by the blank look on his face.

"Why did you leave?" he finally asked.

"What? I'm right here," she said.

"Why did you leave, Hermione?" he repeated. She shook her head, and sat up slowly, edging away from him, towards the headboard. He took a step closer, his hands clasped behind his back.

"My name isn't Hermione," she said, wondering what exactly she had gotten herself into.

"Don't lie to me. I want to know why you left."

She shook her head, her stomach beginning to twist itself into knots. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about. My name isn't Hermione. I hope you find her but I'm not her, so I'm just going to get dressed now and go, okay?"

He shook his head, and for a moment, he looked almost sad. "No. You can't go. I won't let you, not again."

She didn't expect it, really. The entire situation was just too dreamlike. So when he lunged at her suddenly, his hands finally coming out from behind his back, she only had a moment to distantly acknowledge that he was holding a very long, very sharp knife. Part of her was screaming, and kept screaming as he stabbed the blade into her chest, through her left breast.

He continued stabbing, long after she stopped screaming. And then, when what had once been a woman was turned into nothing more than a mess of coagulating blood, splintered bone and torn meat, he sat down on the floor and began to cry.

~*~

Severus Snape gently placed the lock of hair beside the others, inside the small box he kept in one of his kitchen cupboards. The bunches all the same shade of reddish brown, though that was because they were all stiff with dried blood. However, they were all very curly, and had once been plain, average brown. There were just over a half dozen. He kept other collections as well, but they were mostly in the three large, heavy-duty freezers he had in the spare room.

He hummed tunelessly as he finished cleaning the flat. He remembered people he had once known complaining about how hard it was to dispose of a human body. This really wasn't true. Particularly considering how many pieces he preferred to save. The rest just had to soak for a day or two in a bathtub of drain cleaner, and then everything simply washed neatly down the drain.

This had been another disappointment. Hermione wouldn't have allowed herself to be killed. For that matter, she wouldn't have lied so outrageously in the first place. But still, one could never be sure. Which was why he kept the mementos. Just in case. He wouldn't want to simply forsake all of her to the quick decomposition of the tub, and this way, if he somehow found out that one of them _had_ truly been Hermione, he would still have some of her.

This, of course, made perfect sense. 

But, he reasoned, Hermione would never have allowed her life to be stolen so easily. She was always so strong-willed. No, she would have killed him first. He smiled. Her life was just too precious to throw away.

_Yes,_ whispered the vague coherence of his brain, _far too precious to throw away again._

~*~*~*~ 


End file.
